


The Best Plans, Laid to Waste

by not_here_leave_a_message



Category: Motherland: Fort Salem (TV)
Genre: Background Scylla/Raelle, Canon-Compliant, Fix-It of Sorts, Just trying to fill in some of the possible plot holes the Willa story line sort of opened, Mentions of Raylla but it's not the focus sorry fam, Rated T mostly for language, Raylla mentions, There is mentions of Raylla but not enough that I feel like I can tag them., This started as crack and turned into a "wait this could be plausible" fic..., Two Shot, Willa's upset she's gonna swear., Willa-centric fic, possibly lmao at least for S1 since we know next to nothing about Willa.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28149447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_here_leave_a_message/pseuds/not_here_leave_a_message
Summary: Willa Collar had done what needed to be done.  Scylla Ramshorn...had not.  And that had not been part of the goddamned plan.A Willa-centric fic examining why, exactly, she seems to dislike Scylla so much.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39





	1. Miscalculation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all. A Willa fic. From me. Buy your lottery tickets...
> 
> In all seriousness, I never thought I'd write a fic from Willa's perspective, but here we are. The original concept was crack but like...as I started writing it at the behest of the muse, well. The more it evolved. So 2000 words of crack turned into 12,000 words of Willa and her disdain for Scylla. I know that 12k word one-shots aren't unheard of, but I did decide to break it up, just for readability. I've been known to post long one-shots and just have decided that, in general, I do prefer to break them up, so. That said, I'm posting both chapters at the same time so like, it's still basically a one-shot, just with two chapters. 😂
> 
> And like...is the fic accurate?! Probably not! We really just don't know enough yet about Willa and her circumstances or reasons for joining Spree for this to be anything but speculation, but tbqh I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you guys enjoy reading it just as much! I decided to have a bit of faith in Willa and that she likely joined Spree out of desperation, so this fic operates on that good faith. I also think it makes the most sense, considering, you know her civilian husband who she had an actual child with. 
> 
> I digress! This is un-betad because we die like men, but I have edited it several times so hopefully I've caught any glaring errors. Also, big thanks to Cailean for reminding me that the Spree plant was in Middlebury, Vermont.
> 
> Enjoy!

Willa didn’t think that she would actually do it. 

When the assignment had reached her – the next big attack – Willa had stared at the order and quietly sighed to herself.

She’d managed to avoid such assignments since she’d first joined Spree, on the run from the military and forced into the terrorist organization in order to survive. In order to escape an institution that was well and truly unprepared for the threats it would soon be facing.

She’d realized, near the end in Liberia, that it wasn’t Spree they were fighting, but something…someone, much more sinister. 

She saw them, on watch. Standing a fair distance, collars around their necks, singing their sadistic and distorted seeds, and she’d realized that Spree couldn’t do that. Spree couldn’t sing with collars: no witch could. Whoever they were…they weren’t Spree. Their storms weren’t…weren’t natural. They were…abominations. Sinister. 

And Willa realized…she didn’t know who they actually were. What they actually were. And she realized that no one on deployment with her thought they could be anyone but Spree. But…something in the way they held themselves…they weren’t witches. Not by blood. They couldn’t be Spree, for that reason alone, but…there were still other reasons. Like the way their seeds sounded: like nails on chalkboards, glass shattering, fractured and splintered like vocal cords that had been stripped and forcefully repurposed. 

She didn’t understand how no one else heard it. How those songs were too sinister, even for Spree. She had heard Spree’s sounds before: shrieks of the damned, but no matter how foul…they were at least pure. True, rich, witch vocalizations. The songs in Liberia had been distorted. Dark, fractured. They were lies disguised as seeds and they made her ears bleed and made her skin crawl and her spine tingle because they just weren’t right, but no one listened to her. 

No one believed her. 

Of course they didn’t: Willa realized as soon as the words had left her mouth – frenzied to get the others to understand – that they were a mistake. She sounded crazy, blabbing about how the Spree they were fighting weren’t Spree at all. Begging her counterparts to see if any Spree cells were actually nearby and possibly able or willing to help fight alongside their witch cousins to take down…whatever those sinister beings were. Because Willa knew that they needed reinforcements, and the Army likely wouldn’t give it to them. 

No one had listened to her. Especially when she’d begged for Spree intervention. They sat her down in the med wing of their bunker and forced her to rest, thinking she was just suffering exhaustion, suffering from the weight of all of her deployments, suffering from the mental stress of war, to the point of delusion, and those things had gotten to her, but…she knew. Something was wrong. It wasn’t Spree they were fighting, but she didn’t know who or what they were up against, and if no one was willing to listen to her…they were all going to die. They were all going to die and Willa could do nothing to stop it…

And so she left. 

As the sinister sounds pressed ever-closer, she tried to think of an escape. A way out. She couldn’t continue to fight an enemy she didn’t truly know; she couldn’t continue to futilely try to convince her counterparts to their impending doom. 

And she was not ready to die fighting a faceless, nameless enemy.

So as the battle between military and…whoever they were fighting, reached a crescendo, she made the decision, and she disappeared, some of her own clever Work allowing her the clean escape. Allowing her to sense the Spree cells close by, hidden. Aware. 

They knew. They had to. They had to know the true extent of the danger that this new enemy posed. Why else would they not have helped fellow witches in need? Spree supposedly didn’t attack witches, and indeed preached to actively trying to help them, so why else would they not have at least tried to make contact? Why else would they have hidden themselves, around but invisible, undetectable to those who didn’t have true magic flowing in their veins?

Eventually, she found them. Exhausted, she collapsed at Spree’s doorstep and she felt them as they grabbed her, hissing to make sure she wasn’t followed: to make sure _they_ didn’t know she was gone. 

They, who? The military? Or the other threat? 

They held her as a prisoner for days, interrogating her, and all she could do was insist that she had to leave, something new was out there! Something…sinister, and they knew about it, and she knew and they knew, and they had to do something about it! She had abandoned the military for all that it had done to her and for how no one had believed her, and that had piqued their interest. 

Eventually, they chose to believe her. They accepted her. They told her what they knew: that the new threat, was actually an old one.

Camarilla.

They…they were back. Spree had been tracking their growing movement, and their rise was imminent: they were posing as Spree in some countries, and in others, they were carrying out more covert missions to begin to, again, systemically annihilate witchkind, as their forefathers had tried to do. 

She asked to join Spree’s cause. Spree’s fight, against all the Camarilla and all that was wrong with the military. And it wasn’t hard to play the part: to slip on the mask that her exhaustion with the military was actual hatred for it. And for civilians. It wasn’t hard to pretend, at first, that her convictions were squarely in line with Spree’s own goals. Indeed: to an extent, she had always agreed with Spree’s ideas: Conscription was slavery by another name. 

But it was also duty. And Willa had been raised a proper Southern woman: duty above all else. Duty to country. Duty to family. Duty to herself. 

Duty to country had been what compelled her to say the words on her own Conscription day, scared shitless but putting on a brave face, knowing she was doing what was right (or what she thought was right, at the time). But it that same duty to country that saw her following orders that would have gotten her killed, and so duty to country no longer applied.

But duty to family…

 _Her_ family. 

And to herself…she’d always been true to herself. Even when it made her a social pariah. Even when it made her life hard. Even when it meant living in poverty with her civilian, non-magical husband, and their beautiful, strong daughter. 

Duty to herself, and duty to family, were all that she had left… 

She would find her way back to them, and in order to do that…she would have to survive. She would have to play a long game, and she would have to play the part of an eager Spree agent, as best she could. Because despite agreeing with a fair few of their points…she loathed their tactics. Extortion. Torture. Killing innocent people…

But, well…that was war. Willa had seen more than enough innocent lives snuffed out in attacks that had no right to be carried out where they had been. Willa had seen how the world of the military and the world of the Spree viewed innocent people as expendable, neither organization free of blood. Neither having any right to point fingers as to who held the ideological upper hand. 

The difference was…at least Spree knew about the Camarilla’s return. At least some of their resources went into carefully watching a real and rising threat to witchkind. 

And so she’d asked to join, and despite their obvious and dubious misgivings, once they’d put her through a few…trials, to assure her loyalty, she’d been sent to a Spree faction in the Mid-West as a middle-man: not quite considered a “new” recruit, but not a leader, either. 

A middle-management type. Not needing to do Spree’s dirty work, but…having to come up with it. As a medic, Spree knew she knew the human body, and all the ways it could be hurt. 

She did what she had to do, but she wasn’t proud of it. Spree were violent, and she’d known that, but she’d gotten lucky: her first faction largely dealt more with intimidation tactics than anything else, and Willa made sure to participate where she could or where she was told to: thinking up plans on how they could threaten civilians, plans on how to scare them, plans and plans and plans, all begging her to use her intimate understanding of flesh and bone and nerve endings...

Plans, even ones that made bile rise in her throat, she could at least handle. Plans were nothing more than theories, and while she knew that they were executed…as long as she was coming up with the plans, she could try to pretend that once the ideas left her hands, that was where they ended. Even if she watched the agents under her reading her work with serious expressions, ready to carry it all out to the letter.

Her plans had been…sinister, by nature. She knew they would need to be. Spree had their eyes on her, skeptical despite her having passed their tests. She knew that her middle-man status was a test in and of itself. And it was more important that she ace it, than stick to her morals. It was more important that she ace it, than to think of the face of her husband…sweet, harmless Edwin. And every time she thought of him, she felt sick to her stomach as she looked down at plans she had come up with: plans that involved intimidation, kidnapping, ransoms, the whole sinister lot. 

But she couldn’t let on that she wasn’t loyal to Spree. She was certainly more loyal to them than the military, but truly…her only concern was survival. Her own, and that of her family. 

She’d been transferred to a different faction after a few weeks of forcing down bile and the guilt that ate at her gut at her first one. Her second one dealt more with the looming Camarilla threat, and that made the work a little easier: she tried to think of every plan as bringing her one step closer to eliminating the Camarilla threat, but the longer she was in Spree, the more she saw: there would be no quiet elimination. Camarilla’s numbers were unknown, but it seemed…they were at least as big as Spree, and, like Spree…they were growing.

Growing in numbers, growing in ruthlessness. Spreading like a plague.

Festering. 

It hit Willa that…that there was a storm brewing. A mighty one. 

And the storm and fury it brought with it would destroy them all…

Spree, Camarilla, and military…the devastation of a battle between them would be disastrous. Catastrophic. Spree didn’t know what, exactly, Camarilla were using to make their Work…well, work, but it was distorted and broken and…jagged. Wrong. It was so, so wrong. 

And military didn’t even fucking know the Camarilla were back. An enemy once thought extinct…rising from the ashes of yesteryear.

It made her shiver to even think of, and the realization that all three organizations were heading to an inevitable and bloody confrontation…it spelled certain death, for thousands, if not more. 

It spelled devastation to whole environments, whole cities and quite possibly whole countries wiped off of maps, and her stomach twisted painfully to think…to think of her daughter, sent into that. Sent into certain death in the name of an organization that didn’t even know what it was truly up against. An organization that ground witches up until they had no hope left, like Willa herself. That took everything from them, and then kept taking, and taking. Their daughters. Their sons. Their children. Their siblings and their parents. Their futures. 

And if Raelle didn’t die? If she instead was the bringer of that destruction? Her sweet, beautiful Raelle, reduced to a killing machine, reduced to a cog of conquest, reduced to a weapon that could level whole villages. Whole cities, even. 

The destruction of a war between Camarilla, with their terrible work, and between Spree, and the military…

It would be Armageddon. An apocalypse if ever there was one. 

She heard tell of some factions…some cells of Spree, considering an alliance with the military. With their oppressors. Such factions were laughed at. Mocked. Ridiculed. And, despite herself…Willa couldn’t help but agree with those that sneered at the idea. They would be stronger together…but what would the cost be? Both organizations working together, only for the military to turn on Spree when the war looked like it was won…

No. No one would want that. It was a risk that Spree just were not willing to take. Or at least…some of Spree.

It almost didn’t matter, though. No matter what happened, Willa knew…death would be well at home, sat upon a throne of bodies left in the destructive path of war. 

And she couldn’t….she couldn’t let Raelle face that. 

Willa didn’t know what she could do. Where they could hide. How they could hide when she had given so much of herself to the military, and then to Spree. It would be hard to entirely disappear from the radar of both organizations. To disappear from it all, into the ether. It would be nigh-impossible to avoid the inevitable war that Spree so vehemently insisted was coming, though it wasn’t the war that they thought it would be, and Willa knew that. It wouldn’t be witches vs. civilians. It would be witches, against witches, against Camarilla. And everyone else would just be caught in the crossfire. 

She didn’t want that for herself, nor for Raelle, and certainly not for Edwin, and she didn’t know what the hell she could do, but the first step…the first step was to get her daughter. The first step was to get Raelle out of Fort Salem. Out of the bloody clutches of the military war machine. 

She’d set to planning almost as soon as she’d realized the full scale and implications of the return of the Camarilla. As soon as her position in the Spree had been more or less established, she tried to think of ways to get her daughter back, and that was why she worked so hard, despite how much it hurt her very soul, to get to where she was now: a leader. 

Of a very small faction, but it was something. 

It was something. 

The faction had been relatively non-violent, concerned more with espionage than overt intimidation or attacks, and that suited Willa just fine. 

But, staring at the order, Willa sighed. Her good fortune…had come to an end.

It was a test. Because it always was. Even after having been in the organization for nearly a year, and having proved herself enough to be designated a leadership position after only a few months in the organization, she still received these tests.

_Are you truly with us?_ was what the order was asking. _Are you truly a Spree leader?_

_Prove it._

At the very least…she didn’t have to do it. She was indeed the leader: she was supposed to assign tasks, not carry them out, unless the orders were specifically for her. 

She had a couple members who would do it. And she knew that. And she sighed to herself again, running a hand through her hair and staring at the small slip of paper grasped between her fingers, slipped quietly in with the rest of their mail. It wasn’t addressed. No stamp. Nothing. Just a folded piece of cardstock with a crude little balloon drawing in the bottom right corner.

_Faction 201_

_Report: Middlebury, Vermont._

_13:00. Pheasant Ridge. All attendees. Conscription Day._

Willa flipped the page, thinking.

Pheasant Ridge was a mall. Busy one. On Conscription Day, all attendees…everyone in that mall would die. 

The thought had Willa’s stomach churning. 

She had those couple agents who would do it, but only a couple. And she didn’t want to send them. For one, both of them were already out and about on their own, separate missions. And for another…she didn’t want to send them in because they would do it, and she didn’t want that. 

God, she didn’t want that. 

She closed her eyes and pressed her palms into her sockets, sighing. 

Fuck. She’d managed to go so long without having to do this. Without having to actually carry out a mass attack. The plans she’d been involved with making or creating or delegating had always involved things like kidnapping for ransom or threats, physical and psychological, or for a time, simply compiling data as it was brought to her about Camarilla, but this…

This was something else entirely, and though she herself didn’t have to do it…she didn’t want anyone else to, either. 

Shaking her head to herself, Willa straightened, putting the note on her desk. 

She’d been working with her new faction, as their leader, for just shy of seven months, and she planted her elbows on her desk, staring down at the note and blinking. Thinking.

She had four recruits out on missions. Theoretically, she could tell her higher-ups that she couldn’t spare any one of her agents in the field, even though, at most…they would be off their missions for two days. Still…she had three of them tailing important people. Two days…they could miss a lot. Hell, even two hours, they could miss a lot…

The other recruits not in the field were all in her safe house, and for them…she could use the excuse that she couldn’t spare them, either: they were a small faction and she could need them for something. For anything, really. Two simply were too new to be sent on a mission like this…too green. They would be a risk to send in and it’d draw questions to Willa: why them? Why someone who was so new that they obviously wouldn’t be able to do it? Why choose them? 

No. Sending them would almost be too obvious that she was counting on them to fail.

Though…on the other hand, she could try and claim it was an initiation. Trial by fire. But…for an initiation, it was a lot. By Spree standards…perhaps not. But for Willa…it would be too much. She couldn’t do that. She also couldn’t…couldn’t ask them and then have it turn out that they actually did it. It would be traumatizing, and while the recruits were eager…they were young. Children. Sixteen and seventeen, recruited to Spree through their network with Dodgers. 

She refused to use child soldiers, and refused to scar them so deeply on their first mission. She would come up with an excuse for them: say they were not competent enough with the Work to actually properly execute the plan. Argue that their youth made them more likely to back out: to not carry out the mission.

Just…god, anything, to not send them in.

The other two recruits with her at the safe house were…integral, to the house’s operation. Which wasn’t entirely true, but Willa could fudge the details, if she had to. One was her guard. One monitored the mycelium (as best he could: they really did miss their Necro sometimes…). She couldn’t spare either for even a day, in case something happened, as unlikely as it was.

It was flimsy, and if Spree came asking, she knew it wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny, but she had time to think of other reasons, and so that left her the four operatives who were on their various missions in the field. Three had been assigned before Willa had come in, and the fourth she’d sent out per Spree orders shortly after she’d arrived. 

Of all four that she had out, two field agents were busy tailing two officials: one, suspected Camarilla. The other, a local politician who needed some…persuasion, on his stance on witches. The agent that Willa had sent out after she became the faction’s leader was down in Connecticut gathering intel on a suspected Camarilla hotspot. And finally, there was their Necro, biding her time at Fort Salem.

Their Necro…

Willa furrowed her brow. She’d met their Necro when she’d been given weekend leave from Fort Salem and Willa had just arrived as the new faction leader. They had a brief rendezvous at the old lighthouse in Marblehead. 

Their Necro had been assigned to Fort Salem when she turned eighteen: forced to take the oath, though she told Willa she had done so willingly, in the name of serving the Spree. It was the biggest mission she’d been given by Spree – or so she said – and she’d planned on doing well: to make Spree proud, and let the military make her stronger, so she’d said the words when the time had come.

Hers was a tragic story, though she didn’t open up much about it when Willa had asked.

That was fine, though. Willa knew the basics. Dodger parents. Killed by the military. 

It must have burned her up inside to take the oath.

Despite her dark and painful past, the agent seemed…put-together. Calm. Lively. She didn’t seem to be consumed by pain, her tone neutral as she gave Willa the bare-bones version of her past. Indeed, all things considered, the young recruit almost seemed…normal. Perhaps a bit upset with being at Fort Salem, a hint of disdain in her voice anytime she said it or mentioned something having to do with it, but otherwise…she seemed incredibly well-adjusted. 

If anything, she almost seemed…eager, for her cause. Perhaps Spree had given her a new purpose: something to work towards. Willa knew how important that was, in order to survive: to find a reason to keep going. 

When not talking about the military, she seemed almost too happy to speak with Willa, though she didn’t say much, per se. Willa couldn’t help but marvel, a little, at the young one’s ability to say so much and yet so little, most of her words platitudes: trying to get on Willa’s good side. Praising Spree for all that she had learned. Praising Spree for being there, for being an alternative to the military. For actually _doing_ something. 

It seemed that…their Necro still had rose-colored glasses on, when it came to Spree. It was something that Willa had noticed in a lot of newer recruits: naïveté. An inherent misunderstanding about what Spree was, and what they stood for, and what they did. Willa’d seen so many kids talking about how different Spree was from the military – how Spree fought for witch liberation, and so they, by fighting for Spree, weren’t under some oppressive thumb – but honestly…the two organizations weren’t that different, in Willa’s experience. They both took children and molded them into weapons. Molded them into terrorists and spies and gave them something to fight for, and sent them off into the world to die, and for what? A goal that was a pipe dream, at best. Both organizations expected blind obedience, and they both expected their recruits to fall in line and to kill in droves and to spill blood in the name of their cause, innocent as that blood may be, and in the end, choosing between them was hardly a choice at all, as far as Willa was concerned. 

If she had to guess…it was likely that the young Necro had never been commanded to commit acts of violence in the name of Spree, let alone on the grand scale that Spree were becoming known for. And as she hadn’t been made to end tens or hundreds of lives, she still believed that Spree, despite their other, violent cells…was the answer. Was the right organization for her. And, as she had said…she wanted to do right by them.

As the eagerness to prove herself came through her tone in the few words she spoke, Willa realized that their Necro was in over her head, and that realization sent a pang of sadness through Willa. The agent would be in for a rude awakening, when the time came. 

Still…everything about her, from the way she held herself to the way she spoke and how she acted around Willa – bravado with a dash of charisma and drive – it gave their Necro an aura of mystery. 

She was perfect, actually. Alluring. Willa realized, with small, side-long glances at the young woman, that her daughter wouldn’t be able to resist such an interesting aura. Such intriguing – and she would even dare to say endearing – charm, and that could definitely work for the plan that had started to form in Willa’s mind some time before she’d received her promotion.

The agent’s name was Scylla Ramshorn, and on their second meeting, at the same spot, she seemed to be awaiting a reassignment, clearly thinking her hints had been enough. But Willa had made up her mind: Scylla was perfect, and already situated exactly where Willa needed her, and so it was decided. 

“You’ll stay your course at Fort Salem,” Willa had told her, not looking at her, squinting out over the Marblehead harbor.

She saw, from the corner of her eye, Scylla turn to look at her, perhaps incredulous, perhaps surprised. 

Willa nodded decisively, not looking back at her. They were sat with plenty of distance between them, two strangers sharing a bench to anyone who saw them. “I have an assignment for you there. When the time comes, you’ll receive the details the same way you usually get orders,” and then, just to pique Scylla’s curiosity, Willa elaborated a little: “A cadet will be joining Fort Salem this coming Conscription Day. She is high-priority. You will bring her to our cause, and when the time is right, you will both be extracted from Fort Salem. Stay the course,” Willa had glanced at her, then, long enough to make brief eye contact. “Do this well, and you will never have to step foot in Fort Salem again. For now: await further instructions.”

Willa did meet with Scylla a few times more: just check-ins as her new leader and for updates from within Fort Salem. She made sure to check in with all of her agents, as frequently as she dared, her first few weeks as leader of their faction. None of the field agents were supposed to come to the safe house until their missions were complete, because they may be tailed, so Willa would always meet them in specific places, sending out messages beforehand so that her agents would know the rendezvous point. And she did it…to establish her presence. To remind her agents that they worked for someone. That that someone had a face, and a name, and they answered to her. 

And it would do them good to remember that.

So she knew that when she gave the order for the attack…any one of them would accept. But she needed to think of who would actually back down, once they realized the full extent of the mission…despite the possible consequences. 

Of all of her agents, in the field…Scylla was the closest to Middlebury. Scylla was on campus at Fort Salem, and…well, Willa had observed that Scylla seemed to be able to get away from Fort Salem with impressive, if slightly concerning, ease. 

Then again…she had been a Dodger, as well. Dodgers were like mice: if there was a way in or out, they would find it. Scylla was no doubt resourceful, which had likely served her well at Fort Salem and during her early days with Spree. 

Besides already being at Fort Salem, that resourcefulness had Willa feeling, over all, very confident in Scylla’s ability to get Raelle to Spree. She was certainly Raelle’s type: charming, if a little closed-off. Trouble with a coquettish smile. 

She was a good Spree candidate. Hated the military. Willa had a small, personal file on each of her recruits, and it had been passed down from the last leader. She’d read all of Scylla’s, empty as it mostly was. The information about her parents was in it, along with her orders to act as a spy at Fort Salem after a few other missions that proved her loyalty to Spree. There was no specific information about these “missions”, but from what Willa could see, Scylla hadn’t belonged to any other factions (much less known violent ones) and had likely just been on information recon before being sent to Fort Salem. 

She’d been sent there for training, a fact that had been scribbled and underlined and circled, in her file. Coming from a family of Dodgers, it would make sense that she had been in dire need of the education that really, only Fort Salem had the authority on. Necros were as mysterious as they were revered, and Fort Salem was one of the best for training them. She would be of much better use to Spree after she’d properly learned her specific branch of Work, and all it entailed. And she would be relatively safe at Fort Salem, certainly safer than at the safe house. 

Based on her file alone, despite Scylla’s seeming cunning and resourcefulness, she’d been sent to Fort Salem as soon as she was able to take the oath, and it had been likely, solely for Necro training. Perhaps she had been told it was a spy mission, so that she wouldn’t throw a fit about having to say the words. Or perhaps her old leader had just told her that they needed her to be strong, and the military would do that work for them, and perhaps had promised her more assignments upon completion of her program. 

Either option was plausible. 

Willa sighed again, shaking her head. 

At least...the luring of her daughter to Spree, that much, she trusted Scylla with. That much didn’t require murder, on a large scale. That didn’t require Work, didn’t require Necro specialization, didn’t require anything but some confidence and subtly, and she trusted Scylla to be capable of both of those, but…

Could…could she give the Middlebury assignment to Scylla? 

Scylla was inexperienced, but eager. Smart. Sharp: the way she spoke, her words deliberate, saying something but also nothing. She’d only been in Spree for a couple years, and likely, most of her first year had been simple training in Spree Work, and whatever couple of missions she’d been tested with. And then she had been sent to Fort Salem, which was perfect for Willa’s secret mission, but it clearly hadn’t been Scylla’s idea of an ideal assignment, no matter how much she tried to play it off like she didn’t mind. No matter how much she tried to say that, as long as it was for their cause, she was okay with just…waiting. Learning. Growing stronger. 

She was eager. She wanted to do more. She felt like Fort Salem wasn’t enough. She wanted to do something more concrete for their cause, her rose-colored glasses preventing her from seeing just how gruesome that could truly be…

Maybe this new mission could humble her a bit. Make her realize the shit they could be having her do. Make her realize how good she had it, learning and biding her time at Fort Salem. 

And, well…Willa didn’t know Scylla well, but she doubted Scylla had been made to kill anyone. It just wasn’t what their faction did. Scylla struck her as the type to bottle her emotions, but she still had them, and that would be important. She was eager to serve Spree, but she was also smart, Willa could tell. She would know the scale of the attack. She would understand its magnitude. She would grasp, perhaps better than the other agents that Willa had met, the devastation. She would be able to conceptualize it better, because she was clever. And that would be crucial, because realizing the size of the attack could be a major deterrent, not matter how much she wished to be loyal to Spree. Her common sense, with any luck, would outweigh her eagerness: would shatter her rose glasses. 

Would break her out of her inexperience and naïveté. 

And if…if Willa could give this assignment to an agent, who then couldn’t do it…she could use that as an excuse. She could tell the higher ups that this wasn’t what her faction did, and she had tried and had assigned it to Scylla, and Scylla had failed, and she could “punish” Scylla behind closed doors, and the higher ups could try to give it to someone else. She could pass it off. She could absolve herself of the responsibility. She could save herself the heavy heart of knowing she had given the order to end so many lives. So many _civilian_ lives, Edwin’s face flashing in her mind’s eye.

It was a glimmer of hope: a small way to not compromise herself with Spree, nor compromise her secret, hidden morals.

Of all of her agents in the field…Willa eyed the order on her desk as she thought.

Of all of her agents in the field…Scylla was actually the one she needed most to stay put. But Spree didn’t know that. Her higher-ups didn’t really…know, about her little side mission. It was between her, Scylla, and the few operatives still with her in the house. But they thought it was official Spree business, and Willa simply…didn’t correct them. They all answered to her, after all, and they didn’t even have a way of contacting Willa’s bosses: hell, Willa barely had a way to do that. The pipeline was, for all intents and purposes, one-way. 

The problem, then, was that really…she didn’t have an excuse for _not_ sending Scylla. She needed Scylla in Fort Salem, but she had no way of justifying that to anyone who may ask without bringing suspicion, and she didn’t want that. She didn’t need yet another reason for Spree to doubt her. 

Of all of her operatives, quite simply, from Spree’s perspective…Scylla was the best option. The option Willa had the least excuses to not use. She was the closest to Middlebury. Scylla was at Fort Salem, and had been there for a year: two days wouldn’t be a detriment to her mission. She wasn’t following anyone. She wasn’t assigned to any specific person. She was simply…there, biding her time, being trained by the military, letting them make her powerful. And it wasn’t like she was the only Spree agent on campus, even if she was the only one of Willa’s. Indeed, Fort Salem was well-covered: Willa had no reason to not send Scylla to Middlebury. She was free as a bird, caged on the campus, and Spree would ask Willa why she hadn’t let their little bird fly. 

It actually…it could work out nicely, even if it was a risk to Willa’s own, secret plan. Scylla’s low-risk assignment within Fort Salem’s walls made her ideal, compared to her counterparts on their various missions. She was available, and eager, and indeed, picking someone else could also be seen as suspicious. As jeopardizing actual missions. 

And Scylla was…younger, than the other agents Willa had in the field. Younger, less exposed to the horrors that Spree were known for, untouched by the more violent side of the organization. Scylla was loyal to Spree but only knew their violence in theory, and asking her to commit such an act, on such a scale…it was a big thing to ask. 

Huge. 

…and Scylla may cave under the pressure. She seemed tough, but Willa was skeptical as to how much of her confidence was pure perseverance, and how much of it was bravado. And, well…even tough nuts cracked with enough force. 

And this assignment…it would be too much. It was too much for Willa, and all she had to do was try and give it to someone. 

She picked up the page, the message written in plain, neat cursive on creased cardstock. She folded it over her middle finger and tapped it on her desk, thinking.

It…it could work. It could actually be…perfect. As much as Willa needed Scylla at Fort Salem…this could actually be the perfect excuse to keep her there. She could give the attack to Scylla: she was closest, she was chomping at the bit for a new assignment, and indeed, giving it to anyone else would be…suspicious. And Scylla was just young enough that the horrors of the assignment may shock her out of actually doing it. 

And when it got back to Willa and to Spree that Scylla hadn’t been able carry out her orders, her “punishment” could be to continue to be relegated, or even exiled, to Fort Salem. And considering what the military had done to her parents…forcing her to continue there could perhaps be seen as punishment enough. 

Willa could see it all unfolding in her mind’s eye. She would give the order, and Scylla would eagerly accept, not fully aware of what said order entailed. Even still, she would accept: Willa knew she was ready to be free of Fort Salem, even if for only a few hours. She would then go to Vermont, get the weapon and the details of the assignment. Drive to her destination as she started to realize what, exactly her orders truly were, and what they meant. And with a sinking feeling in her stomach, Willa’s little spy from Fort Salem would see all the people at the mall: all of those families just like her own. Mothers and fathers out with their children, just trying to enjoy their lives, just trying to have a good day and celebrate.

And she would back down. She would back down because she couldn’t be the same monster that the military was: because she couldn’t do what they did but to hundreds more families. Because she was young and not yet entirely jaded, like Willa’s other field agents. And because her eagerness showed her inexperience: her naïveté. And when the reality of what Spree truly was finally hit her…at the realization of ending the lives of so many, would she be able to do it? Because as a Necro, she would know death and would know that so much death was an imbalance. She would feel it, on top of that. She would know it in a way that no one else would, and Willa knew that would weigh on her. 

Would stop her. 

After all…her problem was with the military, not with civilians. Of that, Willa had little doubt. Civilians hadn’t been the ones to hunt her parents. Civilians hadn’t been the ones to force her and her family on the run. As such…an attack on civilians (and on so many, at that) could possibly, hopefully, be too much. 

At any rate, it stood to reason that Scylla wouldn’t be able to go through with it, and so Willa nodded to herself. On top of that, Spree wouldn’t be able to say anything against Willa: she had sent the most appropriate candidate based on the importance of the missions of her other agents. It was a win-win.

So, that was that. 

She took a day to think on it. To consider all of her options.

And she sent the orders out. 

And she wasn’t…Scylla wasn’t supposed to actually do it. 

She wasn’t. 

But she did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the first part! The next part is already up so feel free to head over there if you don't feel like reading the Note! :)
> 
> Assuming Willa doesn't have full access to Scylla's history, or assuming she's never told if Scylla's done anything violent for Spree in the past (hell, even assuming Scylla actually hasn't done anything violent for Spree in the past), I could see her not noticing Scylla's darkness, or not properly recognizing it. Especially because Willa would also look at Scylla and see...well, a child, honestly. A child who hadn't had any missions except to be at Fort Salem, which is pretty low-risk. 
> 
> Also, it's not like her daughter picked up on Scylla's sinister side right away, either. The Collar women have a blind spot for Scylla Ramshorn, I guess.
> 
> Anyway! I could see Willa making this miscalculation, and having it be the first step to her disliking Scylla. Indeed, as you'll see in the next chapter, it all kind of snow balls from here, and I think it can explain some otherwise...stupid decisions made by "Spree" or Willa in regards to Scylla. But that's next chapter! Which is already up, so feel free to head on over there, if you have bothered reading this note haha! You're more than welcome to drop a comment on this chapter if you enjoyed it before you go to chapter 2, feeding the author is never a bad idea and in fact, is always appreciated!
> 
> Onto the next one!


	2. Desolation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Onward!

Willa watched the news, mouth covered with both of her hands, horror running down her spine, but she made sure to keep her expression carefully neutral, even critical, as the newscaster relayed the information.

Scylla had actually done it. She had taken the lives of every. Single. Person. In that mall.

Willa waited until she was alone in her room, later that night, to let the weight of that realization really settle on her. A pit opened up in her stomach, fear creeping down her spine like drops of cold water. The girl she was trusting with her daughter…wasn’t who Willa had thought she was. 

She was…cold. She had to be. To take so many lives…

Willa honestly hadn’t thought Scylla would do it. She didn’t think, she-

Willa ran a hand through her hair, letting out a long, shaky breath as she continued to pace, alone in her room. 

She had read Scylla all wrong. That eagerness, it wasn’t…it wasn’t inexperience. It wasn’t naïveté. It wasn’t innocence, nor illusion, nor any of the other things she’d thought about Scylla. Scylla didn’t view Spree with rose-colored glasses _despite_ their violent acts…she saw them with rose-colored glasses _because_ of their violence. Their terrorism. Perhaps it was _because_ of the lives they took, that Scylla had joined Spree, and it gave Willa a headache to think that. 

She…fuck, she had known that Scylla was in pain. It had only been two years since her parents’ execution, and pain like that, while it could be hidden…didn’t just go away. Willa knew from the death of her own parents, who hadn’t even been murdered, and yet their memory still sent a pang resonating through her. 

That pain didn’t simply disappear just because Scylla had found a cause, and had immersed herself in it. 

But Willa’d thought…she’d thought the pain only translated to anger at the military: a deep-seated loathing that she would slowly let go as the years went by, but…no. No. As Willa watched the news, seeing the body count climb with every passing minute, it’d hit her: Scylla wasn’t in pain. 

Not anymore. She’d taken her pain and she’d twisted it beyond all rhyme and reason, pressing it beneath the weight of bottled emotions until it boiled, and distilled into nothing but rage and cold darkness. 

Scylla Ramshorn had known precisely what she had gotten herself into. She wasn’t some young child who didn’t know the organization she had signed up for. No, this child…this child was a violent terrorist, in a violent terrorist group. She had gotten precisely what she had wanted all along, and Willa had handed it to her. 

And she’d realized all of that as she’d seen the smile on Scylla’s face.

Willa had only just started to process the fact that the mall attack – the attack she had expressly given to Scylla so that it _wouldn’t_ happen – had actually been carried out, executed with surgical precision and untold devastation. Willa had only just started to process…everything: she’d been sat in front of the TV for hours, watching the continuing coverage, unable to take her eyes off of it, still very much in disbelief that it had even happened, when one of her agents had approached her: Scylla was back at Fort Salem and ready for the details of her next assignment. The cogs in Willa’s mind had only started to turn as she sat down at the mirror to speak with Scylla.

And all that she could think, looking at the young woman…was that she had done it.

Scylla Ramshorn had actually done it. 

For a moment, Willa could do nothing but stare. Scylla, stood before her, in all of her bloody glory. And then Willa had seen it: the simple smile on her face. As if nothing had happened.

It’d sent a chill down Willa’s spine. It wasn’t a big smile. It wasn’t gloating, but rather, understated. Barely-there. Satisfied. 

Satisfied with her work. Satisfied that she had done it. Satisfied that she could stand before her leader and report that the mission had been successful.

Willa had to swallow down the bile that rose in her throat as she took Scylla in, hands folded behind her back, that triumphant look on her face, features unaffected, eyes alight, and it dawned on Willa…

Scylla didn’t care. 

She didn’t care that she had taken so many lives in one fell swoop. That she had snuffed out so many living, breathing beings.

Vermin. To her, that was all that they were. There was no other way…no other way she could have done that. The slight bounce she did on the balls of her feet while Willa congratulated her with a churning stomach, confirmed it all. All of the mounting, dark thoughts Willa was starting to have about their Necro agent. 

It wasn’t blind loyalty and eagerness that gave her that spark in her eyes. 

It was darkness. The type of darkness so unfathomable that it appeared to shimmer: black as the purest of ink, so dark so as to reflect the light around it. It was malicious. And it was looking at her through a mirror, awaiting the details of the mission Willa had mentioned so many months prior. 

The mission. Scylla’s next assignment. 

_Raelle._

Willa had blinked, slowly coming out of the haze of her thoughts as Scylla asked about the promised details, the words she spoke appearing as letters written in steam on the mirror. 

Right. It was Conscription Day, Willa remembered that with a blink.

It was Conscription Day. Raelle would have already arrived at Fort Salem. 

Willa needed to pass on the information: to give Scylla the full details of her new assignment. 

She almost flinched, almost recoiled, when it hit her that this…this vile being, was her only option.

Her only option to get her daughter back. Her only agent at Fort Salem. 

It took everything in her to open her mouth and give the information. It took everything in her to control the disgust in her voice, to control how physically sick it made her to look into the face of a mass-murderer, and know that that…killer, would be her only hope of getting her daughter back. Her entire plan rode on Scylla’s shoulders, and she wasn’t even allowed to show how much that bothered her. All too aware of the eyes on her, both Scylla’s and the other agents present in the room with her…she reluctantly told Scylla her next mission. 

What other choice did she have? Willa couldn’t pull Scylla from Fort Salem. It was far too late for that. And she couldn’t exactly reassign any of her agents to Fort Salem, in Scylla’s stead. Not to mention she was the only agent Willa had who was Raelle’s age. Who would have a reason to be around her: to be close to her, to be with her, daily. To slowly coax her to Spree. 

To Willa. 

Willa couldn’t retract the assignment now, and indeed…to anyone looking in, she had no reason to. Scylla had followed her orders to a T. She had already returned to Fort Salem, she was in her room at the agreed upon hour, right down to the minute, arms folded behind her back, pleased smile revealing her sinister nature. By all counts…Scylla had done everything she was supposed to, and yet _nothing that Willa had thought she would_. 

And that made Willa nervous. 

Terrified, actually. That she had looked at this…this, terrorist, hidden in plain sight – “hidden” _in a terrorist organization_ – and hadn’t seen her. Had mistaken her for some soft child to be pitied. But, no…she wasn’t. 

And if she was capable of just…murdering so many people, when Willa had thought for sure she wouldn’t…what was she capable of with Raelle? What was she capable of, in general? And what stopped that clear lust for blood? How tightly did she lock it down? How willing would she be to let it out, if Raelle became stubborn, or unruly, as she sometimes did? If Raelle’s impulsive nature took over…what was to stop this murderer from laying her hands on her daughter?

Willa shuddered to think. But, no…Scylla’s orders with Raelle were for extraction, nothing else, so there would be no need for violence. Just in case…Willa made sure to explicitly, subtly, hint that no violence be needed nor used unless deemed absolutely necessary. She stressed that the package – “the Bowerbird”, as she chose to designate her daughter – was of utmost priority. 

Scylla had nodded and said she understood, and Willa had ground her teeth, loathing that she needed to even add that “unless absolutely necessary” caveat, to not blow her own emotional ties to Scylla’s new target. She hated that she had to specify, and despite she herself not foreseeing a need for Scylla to do anything extreme to get Raelle to her…clearly, she’d underestimated her own agent. She’d underestimated her agent’s rage, well-hidden beneath a mask of charm and snark. Swimming, languid and patient, in the depths of her darkness. 

That had been the end of their correspondence, and Willa had retired to her room, locking the door tight behind her and beginning to pace, back and forth, thinking, her heart going a mile a minute in her chest, fear still slithering up and down her spine like a dark serpent.

With…clearer instructions laid out, hopefully, there was no way that Scylla could possibly surprise her when it came to her assignment with Raelle…

Right?

\---

Wrong.

God, when it came to Scylla, Willa was so fucking wrong, and she hated that, scowling at the pages on her desk, the image seared into her brain of Scylla…with Raelle…

She hadn’t believed the agent she’d assigned to check in with Scylla when said agent had first reported that Scylla had _seduced her fucking daughter_. She hadn’t believed it because it just seemed too absolutely, bat-shit insane to be true. She hadn’t believed it, but maybe she should have, because honestly, once again…leave it to Scylla to do the exact opposite of what Willa had expected or even wanted her to do, or to just do what Willa had not even thought of as an option.

Thankfully, the position she’d seen them in hadn’t been too…compromising, but it was obvious from the way that they…and with the – well, clearly, this wasn’t the first time. She didn’t want to know the first time. She didn’t want to know any of this! She didn’t want to know a goddamn bit. 

Scylla. A mass murderer. Had seduced. 

Her. 

Fucking. 

Daughter. 

She had wanted Raelle to be brought into the folds of the Spree, yes, but not quite so literally! She had figured that Scylla would be able to use her charm to intrigue Raelle enough to simply…coax her into considering Spree, and then, successfully smuggling Raelle out. Hell, Willa really didn’t even want Raelle to actually agree with or want to be in Spree, the point was to get her daughter out of Fort Salem and into her arms, and that was that. The whole damn point was to finally reunite with her baby, and then: to disappear. 

In no way had she wanted, or meant, this for Raelle: in no way could she have foreseen it coming, and yet, of course…Scylla had subverted expectations yet again. And, yet again…in a very bad way. And she loathed Scylla all the more for it. What right did she have?!

What…what had Scylla done? What had she done…what had she said? Lied about? How had she gotten Raelle into her bed? Raelle had no idea the fire she was playing with, and the realization had Willa grinding her teeth, clenching her jaw so hard that she was giving herself a headache over it. 

No, this…this was not good. 

And Willa was only just beginning to get over her initial shock – her initial anger at Scylla deciding that the best way to bring Raelle to Spree was to bring Raelle to bed, apparently – when Scylla’s next stupid decision was passed on to her. 

She’d killed her fucking ex. 

No one had told her to. No one had ordered her to! No one had even insinuated, at least, not in Willa’s faction, that Scylla kill Porter. Because that would be stupid, and there were better ways to shut someone up than to _send them to their deaths on a campus full of powerful Necros during Beltane_. 

Willa understood, to an extent, _why_ she had done it, but it was messy and stupid and the timing was just awful. Thankfully, the whispers that came in from Fort Salem from other factions that had their own eyes and ears on the campus gave Willa a heads up about the death current, which at least meant that things could be somewhat fixed, but Willa found herself all the more irate. 

Great, not only was her daughter sleeping with a mass murderer, a regular murderer, and a Spree agent…she was sleeping with a moron. 

It made Willa’s head hurt, to think of how quickly things had unraveled. They’d been going so well, and now what? Now, her daughter was falling in love – was being brought into darkness – by a monster, and Raelle had no idea she was being used and manipulated, and Willa could do nothing but watch, unable to abandon her post and unwilling to risk revealing herself to the military in a futile attempt to smuggle her daughter out of Fort Salem herself. 

But she couldn’t do nothing…that simply would just not do.

She’d sent the agent in to warn Scylla, and to remind her of her mission: extract Raelle. And Scylla’s choices had made the extraction…all the more necessary, and indeed, imminent. Pushed to sooner than expected, simply because Willa couldn’t keep that stupid agent at Fort Salem any longer: she had thought Scylla intelligent, but clearly, her thoughts on Scylla had all just simply been incorrect.

So she’d sent Scylla a warning, and while she knew it wasn’t specifically said, she hoped that the _stop fucking your target!_ part of the message came through, just as loud and clear as what was actually explicitly said. Just to add insult to injury, she’d sent the agent in with the express instructions for them to shape-shift into the body of Scylla’s mark. 

Into Raelle.

It should have been traumatizing. It should have worked. It should have been a stark reminder that Spree could be anyone, anytime, anywhere: they could even take the shape of Scylla’s assignment. And maybe she should think twice about just settling into bed with said assignment. 

And it seemed to have worked, at first. Even if only just a little. And well, with Scylla…Willa would take what she could get. 

Scylla went to the wedding like a good little soldier – a punished Spree agent – and she received her extraction orders, and she’d asked if Raelle would be okay and Willa had scoffed, because it wasn’t Scylla’s goddamn place to know or to care, and she wasn’t allowed to ask questions, because she had already done enough damage. 

Willa knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that it was petulant for her to not answer, but she didn’t care. Her daughter had been touched, outside and in, by this agent of chaos: this woman who still smiled as if she didn’t have the blood of sixteen-hundred and one people on her hands. As if she well and truly hated civilians, to the point that she did not care that she had slaughtered them in droves. As if she hadn’t been all too willing to kill an ex-romantic partner, with no prompting from Spree. 

As if she truly was nothing more than that darkness that Willa now so obviously saw in her, and it…it scared Willa, that she had Raelle’s interest (if not her whole heart, which Willa shuddered to think), on top of that. 

Raelle didn’t know. Obviously. Willa knew her daughter. She knew Raelle would never…could never…

Raelle didn’t know, there was no other way. She didn’t know who Scylla was. What Scylla was. And when she found out…when Willa was reunited with her daughter and when they ran away, and Raelle finally learned the truth…

The thought of the pure devastation on her daughter’s face was enough to make tears spring to her eyes. 

And then, while Willa paced, back and forth, by the mirror, awaiting news from the agent she’d sent to the rendezvous point – just because nothing could go to fucking plan, apparently – Scylla, once again, shocked Willa. 

She ignored her orders. 

Willa received news almost immediately when her agent and the target weren’t at the meeting point, which was already bad enough, but she then learned a few hours later about all that had transpired at the Bellweather wedding almost immediately after Scylla decided to disobey orders, and Willa damn near blew a gasket.

Apparently, all hell had broken loose. She would be informed, through the hours following the chaos, that the Camarilla had come around and slaughtered a Bellweather and beaten two others: Petra and her daughter Abigail. 

The lucky ones. 

And all that Willa could think was…that could have been _her_ daughter. 

That could have been _her_ daughter, with her throat slit and left to bleed out, without anyone being any the wiser. It could have been _her_ daughter who was attacked, stabbed, beaten to a bloody pulp. _That_ could have been _her_ daughter, because Scylla hadn’t brought her to the meeting point. Because _Scylla_ had chosen that moment, _of all the times to do so_ , to disobey orders.

Willa hated her, then. Her blood boiled as all that could have happened hit her in waves. 

Scylla had disobeyed her. Scylla had acted recklessly and stupidly and irrationally, and she had been warned and she had been threatened and she still had chosen to disobey orders. 

The one time she absolutely should have listened: the _one time_ it was imperative that she do _exactly_ what she was told, and she hadn’t. She was playing fast and loose with her decisions, picking and choosing what orders she listened to, doing whatever she pleased and doing it with Raelle along for the ride, an unwitting and innocent bystander, led astray by the siren that was Scylla Ramshorn. 

And so, really, Willa couldn’t help but feel self-righteously satisfied when it reached her that Scylla had been taken for questioning at Fort Salem. Scylla’s whole mission, after all, had boiled down to just getting Raelle to the extraction point, and she hadn’t done it, and it served her right to be facing the consequences of her actions. From what Willa gathered, Scylla had perhaps gone too long without seeing consequences, and it had gone to her head. And now, perhaps, she would learn.

And she deserved to learn in the harshest way possible, because clearly, Willa had failed despite the punishments she had tried to dole out. Scylla had fucked up everything. Everything! Willa had no idea how she was going to get Raelle, now. She had been lucky to already have Scylla assigned to Fort Salem. She had been lucky that the person assigned to Fort Salem was the same age as her daughter. She had been lucky to have that opportunity fall right into her lap, and she hadn’t believed her good fortune, because this had been her only plan: her best plan, the easiest plan, and she had mistakenly thought it wouldn’t fail because she was a superior and Scylla, for all intents and purposes, seemed to listen to her superiors. She’d listened for the mall attack and she’s listened for her orders to stay at Fort Salem and she’d listened for the wedding. 

And the one time it was crucial she listened, she decided not to: she had instead turned and spat in Willa’s face. 

And now…and now, Willa was without a plan. She was without a plan and without a daughter ( _her only daughter_ ), and without a means of escape because she couldn’t leave Raelle behind. Not again. 

Suddenly, she was stuck. Suddenly, being a Spree leader wasn’t going to end that very night, with Willa reunited with Raelle and smuggling her out in the wee hours of the morning, the both of them disappearing, going on the run until they could find Edwin and, as a family…vanish. 

Suddenly, Willa had a rogue agent on her hands and Spree superiors breathing down her neck because she’d _lost their only Necro in the tri-county area_ , and, truth be told: Willa didn’t want to get her back. And she had a reason to not do so, either: Scylla’s cover had been blown. Willa, for her part, would just assume let the military tear her apart, because really, what good could she be to Spree now? Certainly not a spy, and there were other Necros. 

Scylla was a burden they were well rid of, as far as Willa was concerned, because suddenly, Willa was stuck. Thanks to the decisions of _one of her own damned agents_ , Willa was well and truly without an escape route: well and truly unable to leave, with nothing to show for her exhaustive efforts infiltrating Spree but a defunct plan, a daughter still very much in the line of danger, and a leadership positon that Willa didn’t want, in an organization she didn’t agree with.

And she hated Scylla for all of it.

\---

Leave it to her daughter to have fallen in love with the terrorist sent to turn her over to the Spree. Willa sent in another agent – the poor guy they had on mycelium watch, who seemed thrilled to be given a different task – to check on “the Bowerbird”. And when she heard about everything that had happened…Raelle in the infirmary after overdosing on Salva. Raelle at City Drop and the disaster that turned into. A cadet from Raelle’s class fucking dying. Dying! 

She felt her blood boil. Raelle was in that danger, because of Scylla. Raelle was in pain, because of Scylla. Had taken nearly an entire tin of Salva and had to be rescued by her unit on a beach after almost drowning, because of Scylla. Raelle was falling apart and picking fights with the people who were supposed to be helping her and it was all. Because. Of. Scylla. 

Because Scylla had picked and chosen what orders she wanted to follow and when she wanted to follow them, with little regard, clearly, for their consequences.

And then…then, Raelle graduated. She survived the active mission that had been her City Drop, and she graduated. Only to be designated as war meat. And then, right as Willa was reeling from that news, Raelle was deployed. 

Willa’s baby. Her daughter. _Her only daughter_. Was sent on a mission. To China. 

To fucking. China. A hotbed of Camarilla activity, with the news of the Tarim passing through Chinese territory.

Her daughter had been sent into the belly of the beast. The beast that Willa had specifically abandoned the military and joined Spree to escape from. The beast whose very jaws she had foreseen tearing at her daughter, and that had spurred her into action. Had spurred her into everything she’d done. Had gotten her to where she was, and where was that, but _worse_ , than where she’d been to begin with?! Worse than square one, worse than her realization on the beach in Liberia, worse than anything she could have ever foreseen when she’d decided to abandon the military. 

Worse than all of it. 

Willa was livid. She was beyond livid. She didn’t even know how to put into words the rage that coursed through her veins, knowing that if Scylla had just followed her goddamned orders, Willa could be halfway across the country with Raelle in that very moment. 

But, no. That hadn’t happened.

Instead, Raelle got sent to China, quite possibly into the waiting jaws of the Camarilla, or a violent Spree cell, or maybe both, and Willa got word that Scylla was heading to the safe house.

When she heard that Scylla had escaped from Fort Salem – as Willa figured she eventually would – she wasn’t at all surprised. A mouse, Scylla certainly was. Vermin. Capable of weeding her way into places she shouldn’t be (like, oh, Willa’s goddamned daughter), and out of others where clearly, she should be. 

Willa was ready for her. As soon as she got word, Willa knew she would have to absolutely make an example of Scylla. She had disobeyed direct orders. She had messed everything up, FUBAR’d it all to high heaven. She’d gotten captured, on top of that. Any other faction would have her head, and Willa planned on doing just that. 

Not literally, much as a part of her might want to. Necros were hard to come by and, like in the military, were coveted because of that, so laying her hands on Scylla would not be tolerated if word got to higher ups, no matter how badly Scylla had messed up. But figuratively…Willa sorted through all of her points, all of what she was going to use to pick Scylla apart and make her bleed, the same way Willa’s heart hadn’t stopped bleeding for her daughter the minute she’d decided to fake her own death.

All that she’d done, she’d done for Raelle. In the hopes that she could reach her and pull her from the jaws of war, yawning and multiple as they were becoming, and now? She had failed, and that came down to Scylla. 

All she had wanted was her daughter. Was her family. And to live in peace, away from the destruction that was surely going to be rained down upon them very, very soon. 

And Scylla had taken that away from her. 

And Willa would tear her apart in the only way she likely would be allowed to: with words.

Starting with the truest ones that she daren’t speak to anyone: that she was doing all of this, for one reason, and one reason only. Willa had no doubt that if it ever came out that she was risking Spree agents and resources for her daughter, the consequences would be dire. Willa hadn’t dared to tell anyone, because if it came out before she had her daughter in her grasp…she didn’t want to think about it. 

Indeed, she had no doubt that telling Scylla would be a risk: that Scylla _knowing,_ would be a risk, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed Scylla to know just how badly she had fucked up. She wanted Scylla to know just how much Willa loathed her, in that moment. She wanted Scylla to feel a fraction of the pain…of the fear, that Willa had. 

She wanted Scylla to know that Willa knew _everything_ , and she very much disapproved of _whatever the hell she had been doing with and to her daughter_. Because Scylla didn’t deserve that. Scylla didn’t deserve happiness: didn’t deserve Raelle’s light. She didn’t deserve to know Raelle, let alone…to do what she had done with her.

It wasn’t even the fact that her daughter had been seduced that bothered her. Indeed, upon seeing Scylla…Willa had realized it may be a possibility, though she had honestly figured that any attraction would be one-sided. She had, perhaps naively, thought that Scylla simply wouldn’t risk upsetting a superior. Simply would have allowed Raelle’s feelings, but certainly not have indulged them. 

But she had known that likely, Raelle would be attracted to Scylla. After all, Willa’d known since Raelle was four years old that she was gay. Call it mother’s intuition. She’d just known, so when she’d caught Raelle, on more than one occasion, in a compromising position with a girl…well, Willa hadn’t been the least bit surprised. She didn’t care who Raelle slept with, as long as she was smart about it. Indeed, she’d noticed quite a pattern to Raelle’s conquests, and Scylla had fit the bill almost too perfectly, so she’d realized that perhaps, Raelle would be enamored.

She just hadn’t counted on Scylla even being interested in Raelle in any way other than for her mission. But clearly, again, Willa had underestimated her agent, and it was on no one but Willa herself. And, really…if seduction was what served to get Raelle to Spree, then Willa would have accepted it. She would have accepted that her agent had seduced her daughter and it would have made things messier but also, in a way, easier. And while Willa couldn’t say that she would have necessarily approved of it, truly, she’d only wanted Raelle back, and if seduction via Spree agent was the only way to get her…so be it. 

It was very much because it was _Scylla_ , that Willa was upset. It was very much because it was a Spree agent filled so clearly to the brim with a darkness of unknown depths. A darkness that allowed her to kill well over a thousand people and then got to Fort Salem and put the very lips she’d used to kill those people on Willa’s daughter not a few days later. That allowed her to use those hands that she’d held her ex with as she compelled him to end his own life, to hold Raelle close, and more. That allowed a soul so bathed in blood, wretched and damned, to hold the beating heart of her daughter in its gore-covered hands, its teeth sharp and eyes blue, dancing with cold fire. 

A monster. 

Raelle had learned only a fraction of who Scylla was, and it had gotten her sent to the front line, as war meat. It had her in China. 

And that was all. Scylla’s. Fault. 

Willa didn’t care that her daughter had fallen in love. She cared that she had fallen in love with _Scylla_ : a wolf in sheep’s clothing that even Willa hadn’t noticed, at first. A true believer in the cause of the Spree: dangerous in her pursuit of Spree’s goal. 

A zealot. 

And the one time she needed to be that zealot…she’d backed out.

The thought had given Willa pause as she started cooking preparation. 

Scylla would be hungry. Willa didn’t know much about prisoners held at Fort Salem, but one who was Spree likely wasn’t getting the royal treatment. Meals would probably be scarce, if they were provided at all. 

So Willa had decided to cook. To greet her rogue agent with warmth: to lull Scylla into a false sense of security. Willa wanted Scylla like Scylla’d had her daughter: unsuspecting, open. Eager. And then, like Scylla had done to Raelle: she would destroy her. Tear her down to size. Show Scylla how dire her straits truly were, for her choices. For her decision to disobey. 

…why had she disobeyed?

The thought hadn’t occurred to her before, too overtaken as Willa had been by her anger and frustration and fear for her daughter. Too upset in how everything had so quickly gone to shit because of Scylla Ramshorn. 

She hadn’t disobeyed an order to slaughter innocent civilians, but when it came to turning Raelle over – not even killing her: just turning her over to an organization that Scylla had been hitherto very loyal to – she’d faltered. Hesitated. 

The cold-blooded killer had decided that turning in a witch was a step too far. She could kill civilians and she could kill witches who happened to be her ex, but handing Raelle over to Spree? _That_ was where she had drawn the line?!

She had asked Willa if Raelle would be safe. 

Had…did…did she actually…care?!

The thought made Willa stop in her preparation: cutting mushrooms. She already had the skillet on the stove, with a mix of butter (for flavor) and olive oil (for the healthy bits) sat in it, waiting only for her to turn on the heat and cook the meal. 

She lowered the knife as she wondered. What had made Scylla decide, in that moment, that she no longer wished to obey orders? The thought that she may be even capable of love, knowing all that Willa now knew about her, seemed a stretch. Love wasn’t born of lies, and that’s all that there had been between Raelle and Scylla. 

That, and the bodies that Scylla left in her wake.

But nothing else made sense, really. Perhaps she just decided she didn’t like being told what to do, which…fit the perception of her that Willa had in her head, but admittedly, didn’t fit her pattern of behavior. Then again, Willa had learned that whatever she thought the reason was, it was the opposite with Scylla. 

If Scylla even had a reason to begin with.

Indeed, Willa couldn’t see a reason for Scylla’s decision at the Bellweather wedding, and that upset her all the more. Her most promising agent, in the eyes of the Spree, had decided that Spree simply wasn’t as important as Raelle, and that put Willa even more on edge. What was Scylla’s game? What was she playing at? Had she…had she had other plans, for Raelle?

And what were they? 

Willa scowled. Knowing Scylla…they weren’t anything good.

Scowl still on her features, Willa returned to cutting the mushrooms. 

It was one more thing she could grill Scylla about. Ream her out for. Punish her over.

Add it to the ever-growing list. 

Willa turned on the stove and finished chopping the mushrooms, pushing them into the sizzling pan and losing herself in the sound of them cooking until the tell-tale sound of the door closing alerted her to Scylla’s presence. 

Scylla had lived in the safe house before Fort Salem. It had been in her file. It didn’t say how long she’d been there, just that she’d arrived some time after her parents were killed by military police. As such, Scylla knew it well, and it was obvious from her careful, slow steps, that she was taking in a home she thought she would likely never see again. 

“How’d you get out?” Willa had asked simply, not turning her attention away from her cooking, purposefully keeping her tone neutral. 

Anacostia, was the answer. 

Saying the words “Good work” almost physically hurt, but Willa pushed the feeling down so that it almost sounded like she meant it. 

“I’m guessin’ you’re hungry,”

“Very,”

Willa turned around, finally facing Scylla. For the first time…face to face, rather than side to side or through a mirror. Acknowledged allies, rather than random strangers on park benches, or balloon and pawn. 

Scylla was pretty. Small. Unassuming. Looking at her in her civvies, her expression more open than Willa had perhaps ever seen it…she didn’t look like a threat. With her hands tucked in her pockets, a small smile on her face. Almost self-satisfied. 

As if she had anything to be satisfied about.

_You were supposed to bring me my daughter._

Willa watched the words as they processed, Scylla’s smile slipping from her features, eyebrows rising in concern, almost alarm, eyes filling with…dread. With realization. The words sunk in and suddenly, she wasn’t so confident. Suddenly, she wasn’t so cocky. Suddenly, she was looking the consequences of all of her actions right in the face, and Willa savored the feeling of watching her expression as it morphed. Willa savored the realization, the implications, as they started clicking in Scylla’s mind, rapid-fire. Because Scylla was stupid in many ways, but despite that, she maintained some level (however modicum) of intelligence. Of cleverness. She put it all together and Willa watched as the weight of her actions started to settle on her shoulders. Watched as the enormity of Scylla’s errors had her moving her head to the side, if only just, looking like she wanted to say something but not having the words, and Willa savored it all as she finally let her anger, her rage, slip through, her own smile falling, gaze hardening. 

Scylla, at the very least, had the decency to look like she realized just how badly she’d fucked up.

And Willa was going to assure that she knew. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol Willa went from "poor sweet summer child doesn't know what she's gotten herself into" to "there are no redeeming qualities in this monster child" real quick. I think she would, though, considering all that she's seen of Scylla, which is...well, a monster child with no redeeming qualities. Assuming Willa joined Spree to save her own skin, she definitely would not be thrilled to learn all of these developments. 
> 
> Anyway! I won't quote the whole fic back at you guys lol, I just have so many thoughts on the Willa story line, but I'm excited to see where they take it. 
> 
> I hope that you enjoyed reading! Thank you for doing so! Let me know what your thoughts are, on the fic or on Willa or both. Comments and kudos are rocket fuel for the muse (also they're just very nice and appreciated 😇).


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